Among Israel’s U.S. Backers, Anxiety and Some Support Greet Obama’s Words

WASHINGTON — President Obama’s new formulation on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — along with his tough new stance against Israeli settlements in the West Bank — has rekindled fears among a few American Jewish organizations that Mr. Obama may be fundamentally less pro-Israeli than his predecessors.

But several prominent pro-Israeli lawmakers on Capitol Hill indicated that they remained behind Mr. Obama’s Middle East push, at least for now.

“The president is absolutely on the right track,” said Representative Gary L. Ackerman, Democrat of New York. “Certainly he’s right that expansion of settlements is not helpful, and hurts a peace process.”

Representative Nita M. Lowey, Democrat of New York, praised the speech that Mr. Obama delivered on Thursday from Cairo, in which he voiced sympathy for what he called the “daily humiliations” of the Palestinians. Ms. Lowey said, “Recognition of historical realities and the dignity, rights and opportunity all people deserve must be at the center of our pursuit of stability and security.”

Whether Mr. Obama can continue to hold on to this support from pro-Israeli lawmakers remains to be seen. His background — a practicing Christian who is the son of a Muslim father from Kenya — as well as some statements and his friendships with prominent Palestinians had left many American Jewish groups worried that he might be tougher on Israel than past American presidents had been.

Mindful that the Cairo speech could cause a stir among American Jews, senior White House officials held a conference call Wednesday night from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, with three to four dozen American Jewish leaders, to alert them to the president’s message and to try to win their support.

But Mr. Obama will clearly have more soothing to do when he comes home. The Zionist Organization of America issued a statement on Friday calling the Cairo speech “strongly biased” against Israel. A statement by the organization’s president, Morton A. Klein, said Mr. Obama’s remarks “may well signal the beginning of a renunciation of America’s strategic alliance with Israel.”

Photo

President Obama with Elie Wiesel, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, writer and Holocaust survivor, leaving the site of the Buchenwald Nazi concentration camp in eastern Germany on Friday.Credit
Pool photo by Ina Fassebende

Although Mr. Obama chose to bypass Israel on his trip, he announced that he was dispatching his Middle East envoy, George J. Mitchell, to the region next week for talks on Arab-Israeli peace, an indication that he intends to follow up the Cairo speech with quick action.

“The moment is now for us to act on what we all know to be the truth, which is that each side is going to have to make some difficult compromises,” Mr. Obama said Friday in Germany. He added: “The Palestinians have to get serious about creating a security environment that is required for Israel to feel confident. Israelis are going to have to take some difficult steps.”

Some of the concerns that supporters of Israel voiced about Mr. Obama before he took office began to dissipate as he assembled a staff that includes a White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, who was a civilian volunteer in the Israeli armed forces, and a secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton, who established strong pro-Israel credentials during her years as a senator from New York.

But some apprehension clearly remains. In an interview on Friday, Representative Ackerman said he believed that Mr. Obama needed to clarify what he meant by a freeze on Israeli settlements, a call that has left Israeli officials deeply uneasy.

Mrs. Clinton said last week that a freeze meant no “natural growth exceptions,” and some Israeli officials have contended that the Obama administration is, in effect, telling Israeli settlers that they cannot have babies. Most Middle East experts say the term “natural growth” applies to actual construction of additional units within the settlements’ existing boundaries.

“We can’t tell people that they can’t have a child,” Mr. Ackerman said.

But the settlers’ annual population growth, at 5.6 percent, far outstrips the Israeli average of 1.8 percent, and Palestinians have complained that even natural growth cannot account for such a disparity.

Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, fell in behind Mr. Obama on the settlement issue, much as he did last month when the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was in Washington and got an earful from lawmakers on Capitol Hill that the United States was serious about a freeze on settlement construction.

Mr. Kerry urged Palestinians to crack down on terrorism, and called for Arab countries to reach out to Israel. He added: “Israel must take difficult steps as well, and as a friend of Israel, the United States must speak with unity on their importance. I agree with President Obama that Israel’s settlement activity undermines efforts to achieve peace, and that these settlements must stop.”

A version of this article appears in print on , on page A8 of the New York edition with the headline: Among Israel’s U.S. Backers, Anxiety And Some Support Greet Obama’s Words. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe